


Haunted Places, Haunted People (the Right Witch for the Job)

by JamieisClassic



Series: Spook'o'Ween 2020 [1]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, City Witch Anduin, Getting Together, Ghosts, Haunting, M/M, Modern Witchcraft, Skeptic Shaw, Trans Anduin Wrynn, Trans Male Character, a little bit of porn as a treat, plot heavy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:48:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26757520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamieisClassic/pseuds/JamieisClassic
Summary: Shaw has trouble keeping a roommate because they all claim his flat is "haunted." He thinks this is bullshit and looks for a witch to certify the place ghost-free, but ends up having to contend with his own ghosts instead when he meets Anduin.
Relationships: Mathias Shaw/Anduin Wrynn
Series: Spook'o'Ween 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949278
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	Haunted Places, Haunted People (the Right Witch for the Job)

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to ComyD for helping me edit this one, you're a champ, bless you ❤ 
> 
> As a note, there is a minor occurrence of dead-naming but it is not only brief but done with no intention of doing harm and immediately apologized for. I hope this is adequately spooky, happy Halloween the 1st.

Mathias Shaw had gone through twelve roommates in the past twelve months. Well, thirteen if you counted Fairwind’s brief stay that lasted two days before he called it quits and begged another friend in the city to make room for him, and fourteen if you counted Valeera who just loudly complained about not being able to randomly crash on his couch anymore, unannounced and without paying rent. In all cases, all fourteen, it was for the equally simple and stupid reason that the apartment was ‘haunted.’ And for this reason, and this reason alone, Mathias found himself standing outside a shop of fairy tales and bullshit and hoping he could pay someone a handful of bucks to verify the place wasn’t haunted. Honestly, he was just tired of being told he was delusional when it was clearly his roommates who were wrong. 

Pushing the door to the new-age shop open, he was greeted by a green-eyed, dark-haired woman in a long-sleeved band t-shirt, a green scarf, and leggings. She smiled and greeted him as he entered. He couldn’t help but feel like he should know her from somewhere, but he couldn’t place just where that was. As he approached the counter and got a better look at her, she squinted back at him before her face brightened with recognition.

“Oh, you’re Mathias! The guy with the haunted flat? I’m Taelia, the lass Flynn moved in with when he got the creeps from yours,” She said with a smile, and Mathias instantly found himself irate.

“Please call me Shaw,” he grumbled, unsurprised she was equally incapable of understanding that his first name was For-Friends-Only, and that random people did not count as friends. “Anyway, it’s not haunted. I want someone to come by and, I don’t know, certify it not haunted or whatever you people do here.” 

She cocked an eyebrow. “What we ‘do here,’  _ Shaw, _ is sell books and occult paraphernalia. If you want a witch for hire look elsewhere, and be aware that if they’re a real witch they’ll want to take care of the place, not just put a stamp of approval on it and let you trick people.”

Shaw barely restrained a growl. “You’ve got to be kidding me. This isn’t real, none of it is real! I just want people to stop randomly leaving and making me pay the full rent on my own because their stupid asses are too scared to live in a perfectly normal apartment that has a few bumps in the night.”

“In that case,” she snapped, crossing her arms, “Why don’t you just keep doing what you’re doing because if it isn’t real, then you don’t have a problem!” 

“Now, now, Taelia, no need to be hasty,” said a feminine voice with a similar accent to Taelia’s from behind Shaw, and he spun to see a similarly dark-haired but brown-eyed woman standing behind him. 

She looked to be in her thirties, her hair loose around her shoulders and dressed in a red sweater over a collared shirt and dark wash jeans, with knee-high leather riding boots topping off the look. Reaching out a hand with a warm smile, she introduced herself, “My name’s Lucille, I’m the proprietor here.” 

“I’m Shaw,” he replied, looking at her hand warily before shaking it. 

She chuckled. “Afraid witchcraft is contagious? Well, never mind, you wouldn’t be the first. Anyhow, if I know anything about your place, and, from what Flynn very passionately told us when he rushed in here after his first night there, it seems you have a bad case of angry ghosts, perhaps a demon. Probably someone magical lived there before you and left behind things that hold their energy or signature. Do you know anything about the previous tenant?” 

“Yes, quite a bit, and I’m quite sure she isn’t  _ magical _ or whatever you called it,” Mathias said, thinking of how many times he and Shandris had sat together and mocked people that believed in ghosts and all that nonsense. 

“Hmm, well I suppose it could be you then. Did you have similar problems at your previous flat?” she asked then, walking with him through the portion of the store that sold books, tall shelves and reading nooks all around them. 

“I don’t have any problems with the place except keeping a roommate. My old place was too small for that, so I simply lived alone.” Mathias remembered Shandris telling him that her place was bigger and that if he got a roommate the rent would be cheaper overall so it was a win-win. Plus, he’d even have someone to boss around. Seems she hadn’t considered that most people were wimps that didn’t like old buildings with vaguely drifting furniture and creaky floors. 

Lucille made a considering noise as they headed to the back of the book section, coming toward a locked cabinet with a heavy screen that obscured most of the books inside and made Mathias wonder just what it is they sold here that they had to keep so locked away. 

“Aleister Crowley’s work,” she said, motioning to the cabinet, “The punk kids think it’s extra cool to have a copy if you stole it, so we decided to lock it away. There are other things in there of high value, of course, that’s just the most prominent.” 

“He’s some big wig in the magic business I take it?” he asked, almost genuinely curious despite himself.

Lucille rolled her eyes. “Of course you don’t know him. He developed a set of divination cards like tarot that function doubly as a summoning ritual, and he’s the most famous occultist by many accounts. Crowley is… well never mind, it wouldn’t make sense to you. He’s something of an icon I suppose, to some of us.” 

“Like Elvis Presley but of magic?” he guessed, and she smiled.

“Yeah, maybe something like that.”

She led him to the left, away from the windows that looked out on the street along the front of the store, and he saw a desk there with another employee behind it. The man was in his twenties, blond, and dressed in a loose marigold sweater that half fell over one shoulder with a deep blue turtleneck underneath and a pair of round wire-frame tortoiseshell glasses perched on his nose as he read a book. 

“This is Anduin,” Lucille said, causing the young man to look up at Mathias, “I think he can help you with your problem.”

Anduin had the bluest eyes Mathias had ever seen, beautiful as the drifting sunlight from the window glinted off them, but to his dismay, they were wide with shock as he stared past Mathias’s shoulder, just to his left.

“A long, dark-haired man, steel-grey eyes hard but beautiful, a red bandana around the neck and a motorcycle jacket. He hates you and misses you at once, and refuses to let you rest he… he loves you but he feels you betrayed him,” he said, still staring to his left and Mathias felt ill.

“How the fuck do you know who I am?” he demanded. He’d gone into protective custody, he’d been promised he would be safe, that no one would know he-

“I have no idea who you are. He’s standing right next to you, is all,” Anduin replied, then seemed to shake himself from it and looked in Mathias’s eyes. “It alarms you that I knew about him, so I’m assuming he is a secret long buried. Perhaps on an official level? But also on a personal level,” he squinted, focusing, “Yes, you feel immense guilt for his death and have been unable to let go even after life moved on. You were recommended to go to counselling but after they told you to let him go you stopped showing up.” 

“Anduin,” Lucille cut in, words carrying a tone of warning, “He’s a skeptic.” 

Anduin shrugged. “That’s not my problem. His ghost, however, is. If he wants me to deal with it, I will, or he can leave and keep being haunted.” 

“I’m not haunted.” 

Anduin snorted, looking to his left then back at him. “I don’t know your ghost, but I can agree with him that you most certainly are. He doesn’t have all of his mouth left but if I’m reading his lips right, he keeps saying something about a Vanessa?” 

“Oh what, you can’t hear him?” Matthias sneered, anger and fear making him jumpy and cruel.

“He’s choosing not to speak. I think, if I gauge it right, you could hear him if he did, and he’s too afraid of scaring you,” Anduin said, and that was it, Mathias was done. 

“Okay stop, you’re being absurd. This was clearly a waste of time and you’re trying to get money out of me, good day,” Mathias snapped and stormed out. 

He tried to tell himself he didn’t feel shaken by the experience, but he knew he was lying to himself. There was no way the man could have known about his connection to Edwin, no way, and the man’s appearance had never been released to the public, yet he described him to a T.  _ Coincidence _ , he thought to himself,  _ He was guessing at first then going off my facial reactions to make a good one.  _ And the more he thought it, the more it seemed plausible: dark hair? That was a common feature and an easy start, then the grey eyes too were not uncommon, perhaps he even noticed the way Mathias had stared at his blue ones and extrapolated from there. All it would take is assuming the man was a threat to Mathias to put together a bandana that could cover the face, and given the military way with which he held himself, the colour of revolution was a good bet. Then the motorcycle jacket was probably flavour based on Shaw’s reactions. 

Feeling confident the man was a fraud, and just very good at reading people, Mathias returned home. He bumped into the bench by his door as he walked in, noticing it was a few inches away from the wall again and pushing it back into place, and kicked his shoes off before heading into the kitchen. It wasn’t even dinner time just yet, barely 5 o’clock, but he already needed a drink, so he grabbed a beer from the fridge and considered briefly the food that was there — a moulding container of something that he’d forgotten about and a handful of apples — and decided he would just order take out again. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialled the pizza place he liked nearby, ordering whatever they had on special and grateful for the early hour when they said it would be delivered in thirty minutes or so. 

Flipping on the telly, Mathias channel surfed until he came to the news and just let it play in the background as he went through emails on his phone. A few minutes later, however, the broadcast caught his attention.

He watched in horror as the camera panned over the burning remains of a rural farming city and the reporter read, “Disaster struck in Sentinel Hill early today when the radical terrorist group known as the Defias Brotherhood struck a blow against the recovery efforts here. While their intentions seem directed at the police officers, many of the houseless civilians in the area were caught in the blaze and are now hospitalized. Little has been heard from the group since their leader, Edwin VanCleef, was taken down by a military task force nearly a decade ago, but it seems they are back and more violent than ever. Prime Minister Wrynn has issued a statement claiming, quote, ‘We were unaware of the continued Defias threat, but just as we took care of it before, we will take care of it now. We have no room in this country for those who would sow terror amongst our citizens and threaten our way of life,’ end quote.

“Furthermore, witnesses report that the new leader of the Defias is none other than a woman named Vanessa VanCleef, daughter of Edwin VanCleef. We have no solid information about Vanessa except that she was found on the street and fostered by the Saldeen family, who claim no knowledge of her real identity, since her father’s death when she was a very young girl. Lead Detective Keirnan speculates that Vanessa is likely only 17 or 18, but has yet to confirm this information. As you can see,” the reporter motioned behind herself, “Sentinel Hill still burns, but efforts are being made to evacuate as efficiently as possible. However, in the process of evacuation, there seems to be growing tension between the police force and the houseless citizens that occupied the city’s outskirts previously. More on that after the break.” 

As the commercials played, Shaw sat staring blankly at the screen as his mind spun. Vanessa. Vanessa, Vanessa, Vanessa. Vanessa was the name Anduin said in the bookstore earlier. Vanessa was what Edwin had been saying, trying to warn him about. Vanessa-

A knock at his door shook him from his thoughts, and he realized as he came out of it that nearly 20 minutes had passed without him realizing. He quickly headed to his door and collected his pizza, giving the delivery person a decent tip and sending them on their way, then brought his pies inside. Though he considered grabbing a plate, he didn’t feel like doing dishes and just brought the boxes with him to the couch, plopping down and opening up the first box to take out a slice. It was hot, and he had to breathe in as he chewed, open-mouthed, to try and cool it down, but it was the best damn pizza he’d ever had and he didn’t care one bit if he burned the shit out of his mouth. 

His beer was warm, he realized as he tried to use it to cool down his tongue, and he got up with a sigh to put it back in the fridge to get cold again and grabbed a second one. After what he just watched, he’d need two at the very least. As he sat back down, returning to his slice of pizza, he frowned and looked at it; every single piece of pepperoni was gone from the slice, leaving just the olives and peppers. He would have just assumed they messed up placing them, and it was a coincidence, but not only could he swear there was pepperoni there before, he could actually see the indents in the cheese where they were. 

“You’re losing it, Mathias,” he grumbled to himself and went back to eating, trying to tamp down the feeling that he wasn’t alone. As he did, he could swear he heard a familiar chuckle. 

By the time he’d gone through the majority of one pizza and a couple of beers, he was feeling sleepy and full and nearly dozed off right there on the couch. Before he could, the couple upstairs started their argument again, and he groaned. Normally, he was awake at this hour and working on various projects so he could just put headphones on to drown them out, but tonight he wanted to sleep and combined with the alcohol and his sour mood he decided their domestic would have to wait for another day. 

As they got to the portion of their argument that his very minimal Mandarin allowed him to understand the gist of — something about whose fault it was their son hated them — he got to their door and banged on it loudly. They continued to argue, voices rising in anger between them again, oh so familiar to Shaw now, and no one came to the door. He banged on it again and a door opened a little way down the hall.

“Dude could ye fuck off is late!” the man yelled, glaring at him. 

“I need to speak to the people here,” he said, surprised the guy was mad at him and not his neighbours.

“Well if ye want tae talk tae them ye’ll need tae go tae the cemetery, both of ‘em have been dead for two years,” the man replied, “Not get ye gone afore I call the cops!” 

Shaw froze in place, a cold stone dropping in his gut as he heard the argument cease behind the door and felt suddenly less alone than he had been before, and he dashed down to his apartment somehow hoping the door would keep him safe. He dead bolted it, leaning his forehead against it and breathing hard, and tried to convince himself it was just a trick of the mind, maybe the man and his neighbours like to mess with people, maybe the man was just playing a trick on him. Yeah, that made sense. He could justify it that way. 

Turning to head back into his living room, he knocked his shin on the bench which now was right in the middle of the hall. He cursed, then really looked at it, maybe for the first time. It was a solid bench, heavy and hard to move without putting his weight into it, and there really was no way it was moving on its own. Finally, for the first time in his life, he allowed himself to believe just a little. 

“Edwin?” he asked, hoping,  _ praying _ , he got no response. 

Pressure on his shoulders like hands resting there made him jump, and he heard another telltale chuckle. “Miss me, Mattie?” 

Despite his heart rabbiting in his chest, he willed himself to calm down. This was just his friend. His dead friend whom he all but killed with his own two hands and abandoned the daughter of. His dead lover who he’d denied his involvement with when the riots started to avoid getting himself in trouble and then further betrayed by utilizing their relationship to get a read on his location. 

“Yes, Edwin, I’ve missed you terribly. You know I still use the cologne you complimented me on,” he tried to keep his emotions down, but he felt like his heart was being torn out of his chest. How could such an old wound hurt so much? 

“I’ve been here the whole time.”

“Haunting me?” he joked, but it was a more sincere question when he really thought about it. 

“Yes, and trying to warn you. You’re in danger, Mattie.” The hands squeezed on his shoulders and Mathias could swear he felt the brush of a breeze against his neck as if someone had sighed right behind him. “You need to go find that witch.”

“Are you threatening me, Edwin?” he asked, expecting a confirmation, but all he got was the feeling of a chest pressed against his back and arms wrapping around his shoulders the way Edwin used to hold him when he was scared. 

“No. I still hate you, but I love you too and this is beyond me. Someone sicked something on you a while ago and I don’t know how to get rid of it or how you could get rid of it yourself. That witch you met, the one who could see me, he could help, I think. He could fix this.” 

“Do you know who-” he started to ask, but before he could finish the question his television turned off, and he could hear dishes clattering in the cabinets. The bench before him slammed backward into the wall and Mathias didn’t waste time in grabbing his coat, wallet and car keys and booking it out of there. 

He made it to his car in record time and with shaking hands, started the engine. A comforting weight on his shoulder told him that Edwin was still there, and he drove out of the underground lot toward the bookstore. When he arrived not fifteen minutes later, he realized the time and groaned to himself when it looked closed. Despite it, though, something in his gut urged him to go to the door anyway, and when he did he saw the sign next to it, noticing that they’d only officially closed a handful of minutes before. Nervous, he knocked on the door, hoping someone was still inside cleaning up. 

“We’re closed!” Lucille called, and Mathias knocked again, louder.

“It’s me, it’s Shaw, I really need to see Anduin,” he called back, very aware that to passers-by he would probably seem more like a clingy ex-boyfriend than anything. 

There wasn’t a reply for a while. Just as Mathias started to lose hope that Anduin was both in and willing to see him, he heard someone approach him from behind, and he spun to find Anduin standing there with his hands up defensively. Seeing that, Mathias realized he’d raised his hands into a fighting stance when he’d spun, and lowered them feeling a little sheepish.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I finished work a couple of hours ago but I had this strong sense I should return, so I did, and I’m glad. Is everything alright?” he asked, but Mathias had a hard time registering his question when he saw the entirety of his outfit. 

Beneath the blue turtleneck and slouchy marigold sweater he was wearing a t-length floral print skirt and old, roughed-up white converse, and the only thought in Mathias’s head was, “You look like a cottage-core reboot of that grungy girl from  _ The Breakfast Club.” _

Anduin raised an eyebrow. “ _ You’ve  _ seen  _ The Breakfast Club? _ ” 

“I’m gay, of course I’ve seen it,” he replied without thinking, only realizing just how that might sound when Edwin’s wheezing laughter filled his ears. 

“What’s next, Mattie, gonna invite the boy back to your place?” he asked between guffaws and Mathias sputtered.

“I wasn’t— I didn’t mean— Ugh why do you have to take everything that way you ass?” He demanded to the air, unaware of exactly where Edwin was, then turned to Anduin, “I’m terribly sorry if that came across as a come on, it wasn’t meant that way.”

“I wouldn’t have been offended either way,” Anduin said and his cheeks grew pink as if he only realized what he’d said belatedly, “Um, anyway, you came looking for me so what can I help you with?” 

“Well, I found out from,” Mathias vaguely motioned to where he’d heard Edwin last, “That there’s something pretty nasty on my trail and it got pretty pissed right before I left and you were the only person I could think of that could help.” 

Anduin hummed. “Do you know what it is, Edwin?” he asked the ghost, but Mathias froze. How did he know his name? Edwin’s appearance had never been released to the public, he had no reason to think this man was anything other than a Defias bandit, especially given the lack of Defias activity over the last decade. 

“How?” he demanded sharply, squinting at Anduin, who at least had the decency to look sheepish. 

“Oh, right, I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself more thoroughly earlier, Shaw, I know it’s been a very long time since we’ve seen each other. My name is Anduin  _ Wrynn _ , only son of Prime Minister Varian Wrynn. We met when I was a child, though you knew me by a different name and gender then,” Anduin explained, and Mathias’s brain raced to catch up. 

When he’d left the capital Varian’s daughter… child had just turned 11, and judging by Anduin’s age he looked about right. In fact, not that he squinted and knew where to look, he saw the telltale brown flecks in his sky blue eyes that his mother had had and the strong jaw and cleft chin of his father. “Alina?” he asked, “Or I mean that used to be what people called you, anyway?” 

Anduin flinched a little but nodded. “Yes, though it makes me very uncomfortable to be called it now.” 

“Oh, of course, I’m sorry. I just… wanted to be sure you were who I remembered. Or, I mean, not remember but who I thought. I-”

“Shaw, it’s fine. Just relax, I know what you mean,” Anduin interrupted before he could dig himself any deeper. 

“Right, sorry. I… You’ve grown into a beautiful young man,” he said, hoping that would finally end his horrifically embarrassing half-sentences and word vomit. 

Anduin blushed again. “Thank you. Now, what can I do to help? Do you know what sort of creature it is that’s disturbing you?” 

“I can’t say with certainty,” Edwin piped up, “But I have a suspicion that it's something not unlike a hex or a curse that has manifested in a physical form. Or it’s something that’s been enthralled or contracted to disturb him the same way those would.” 

“What sort of things happened?” Anduin asked, looking between Mathias and the air to his left. 

“Things move around the house, especially the bench near my front door. Just before we left the TV turned off on its own and dishes were rattling in the cabinets but that’s never happened before. I… also hear ghosts if you hadn't been able to tell and sometimes I feel like I can hear things in my house but when I check on them there isn’t any evidence.”

Anduin cocked his head. “What do you mean by that last part?” 

“Oh, well I’ll hear the shower or sink running sometimes but when I check on it there’s no water so obviously it wasn’t actually running, I was just hearing it,” he explained. 

“Okay, that makes sense,” Anduin said, nodding, “Well, I would love to help tonight but whatever is haunting you is probably going to require a lot more energy to deal with than I have at the moment and going in unprepared could be dangerous for us both. Tomorrow is the new moon, which is a good time for banishings, so I think working on it tomorrow would be a better idea, plus I’ll be able to store up my energy in advance. It’s also my day off, which helps. If you want to sleep at my place I wouldn’t be bothered, I have a feeling you wouldn’t have come running all the way here if you didn’t need to.” 

Mathias considered it. He knew with certainty that he didn’t want to go back to his place, but he also knew that any paternalism that once held meaning in his relationship with the person before him had faded after so many years away and that now, if put in close and intimate quarters, he might find the young man’s beauty all the more distracting. If Anduin’s still fading blush was anything to go by, he wasn’t alone in that, though he supposed Anduin was an adult now, and they were neither related by blood nor marriage, so if anything did happen it wouldn’t really be so terrible… 

Varian would skin him alive for that thought, but he couldn’t find it in his heart to care. “That would be great, Anduin. Thank you.” 

And so they returned to Anduin’s suite, which was only a block or so away in the residential area south of the more commercial street the shop was on. Mathias ended up driving them just to avoid the ticket he’d inevitably get for having his car on the main street come morning, and also so that it was outside Anduin’s for easy transport of whatever tools he needed for the banishing and cleaning he was going to do the next day. The suite itself was small but tidy, one large room that served as his living and sleeping space, with a large kitchen in a separate room and through it a small bathroom. The suite let out to the backyard of the main house, being on the ground floor, and Anduin had set up a small patio table and reading nook outside. 

Anduin brought Mathias through to the kitchen where there was a large table, half of it occupied with various textbooks, notebooks and a laptop, and went about making tea. “I’m sorry for the mess, as you can probably tell this is where I typically study.”

“I don’t mind, really, my home is only clean by principle of the fact that I own very little,” Mathias replied, looking over the books, “I take it you’re here to study?”

“Yeah, I’m in the Pre-Med program at that university in the western part of the city that the author doesn’t feel like coming up with a name for because this fic basically takes place in Vancouver, but he doesn’t feel like figuring out an AU that would make sense for it,” Anduin replied.

“I’ve heard that’s a good school,” Mathias said, “Pre-Med huh?” 

Anduin hummed, taking two mugs out of his cabinets and putting tea bags in them. “It’s a fairly good program if a little up its own ass, honestly the same’s true of the whole school. Not that it’s better out east, but still. At least here there are mountains.” 

“They’re quite beautiful to look at yes,” Mathias agreed, then a thought came to him, “Do you still like to hike? There are some beautiful trails that I’ve been on and I’d be happy to drive us if you wanted.” 

“I’d love that!” Anduin’s eyes lit up and something warm grew in Mathias’s chest. The kettle whistled and Anduin turned around to fill their mugs, then set a timer on his watch and sat down at the table. “So, um, you and Edwin, huh?” 

“Uh…” Shaw looked around nervously, looking for him even though he wasn’t able to see him. 

Anduin chuckled. “He’s not here. I uh… I didn’t let him in, I wanted to talk to you alone.” 

“You can do that?” he asked, surprised.

“Well, yes that’s what wards do. I get to say what entities enter this house and what don’t. Anyway, don’t avoid the question. Were you two together?” he repeated, and Mathias knew he couldn’t dodge this bullet. 

“Yeah, we were together for a number of years. I… don’t know how much he kept from me, how much our relationship was built on lies, but obviously we cared for each other otherwise he wouldn't be here taking care of me in the afterlife,” Mathias explained, “I didn’t know about Vanessa until I saw it on the news, if that’s what you’re getting at, and I don’t know who he had her with so obviously our relationship was… less than ideal. But anyway.” 

“I’m sorry that must have been hard to see. Were you… with him when everything went down?” Anduin asked, and Mathias just nodded, looking down at the table. 

Then, Anduin’s timer went off and Mathias was saved from his awkward condolences by him standing up to finish making their tea. When he’d finished both off with honey and milk he brought them back to the table, and Mathias was grateful for the warmth of the cup between his hands. They sat in a comfortable quiet for a while, sipping from their respective mugs, until he finally found something to ask.

“So what exactly will you be doing tomorrow?” he asked, blowing on the tea a little to help cool it.

“The basic process is to cleanse and re-ward, and then we’ll go from there. If the entity that’s haunting you is more tied to you than that would be effective for, we can do an uncrossing bath and a cleansing of your person. I may also need to do some Reiki or, worst case, I could rip this thing off you in the astral though that would be uncomfortable and leave you susceptible to further damage or hauntings if you don’t heal the psychic wounds properly.” 

“Right. I’m going to pretend I understood more of that than I did and just say that it sounds good,” Mathias said, nodding, and hoped Anduin picked up on it being a joke. 

Gratefully, Anduin smiled and chuckled, and when his eyes sparkled with humour Mathias’s heart did a flip in his chest. He would be so screwed if Anduin didn’t have blankets for him to sleep on the couch with. As if on cue, Anduin seemed to think of something and made an expression that could best be described as awkward.

“Oh, hey, so I forgot to mention, but the heat doesn’t work great in here right now and I can’t run my space heater overnight safely, so I kinda have all of my sheets stacked up on my bed. Um, if you’re not okay with sharing I guess we could try leaving the heater on but I feel like that isn’t safe so…” 

Briefly, Mathias wondered if he’d somehow summoned that outcome by thinking it, but dismissed the idea as ridiculous.  _ In all fairness, you  _ are _ only here because the ghost of your ex-boyfriend said there were demons in your house and you needed to find a witch to get rid of them for you, _ drawled the logical part of his brain, but he shushed it. Logic could wait until morning, for now, he was clinging to his unrelenting superstition. 

“That’s fine, Anduin. I was in the military, I can share a small space with someone without issue.” But this was not the military, and he would not be fine. 

“Oh, right. Of course, I’ll see if I can find you something to wear then, we should probably get to bed sooner rather than later if we want to be well-rested for tomorrow.” 

Anduin collected their empty mugs, rinsing them and leaving them in the sink, and headed into the main room to go through his things. A few moments later he returned with a pair of plaid pyjama bottoms and an oversized-for-Anduin t-shirt. “I hope it’s not weird that these were my ex’s, he left them here and hasn’t come back for them,” Anduin said, placing them on the counter. If Mathias wasn’t wrong, he heard a hint of a bitter “or me” unsaid at the end of the sentence. 

“Thanks, Anduin. I’ll change in the bathroom, you change in the bedroom and come get me from here when you’re done. If the doors open when I come out I’ll assume you’re decent, if that sounds fair?”

“That sounds good,” Anduin replied, and headed into the main room, closing the door behind him. 

Mathias popped into the bathroom and changed quickly, suddenly feeling what Anduin had said about the place being cold. He didn’t have a toothbrush with him, so he just borrowed a little of Anduin’s mouthwash to swish with before heading back into the kitchen. The door was open to the main room, and he walked toward it, but found himself frozen when he saw Anduin, entirely nude and bent over at the waist, digging through the bottom drawer of his dresser. 

His whole mouth was dry, and he was sure the semi he was sporting was clearly evident in the pyjama pants he had on, but for all he knew he should turn around and close the door, he found himself hesitant. If Anduin had opened the door intentionally, then this was a come on, but if it had opened on its own or, somehow, Edwin had gotten in and opened it, he didn’t want to keep watching the man without his consent. But fuck if he wasn’t pretty as a peach, pert ass and milky thighs framing his cunt perfectly and there was little more than Mathias wanted to do but walk right up to him and touch him. 

Before he could make up his mind what to do, Anduin made a sound of triumph and pulled something out of the dresser before turning around and freezing in place when he saw him, cheeks burning pink. 

“The door was open,” he said before Anduin could think he’d intentionally walked in on him, though he wasn’t sure how convincing that sounded when he was obviously rock hard in his pants. 

Anduin looked slowly to the right with a level of vitriol he’d not seen on his face before and demanded lowly, “Get out!”

Had he not been through what he’d been through earlier, Mathias would have assumed Anduin meant him, but now he knew, without doubt, that he was talking to something or someone who he couldn’t see. When Edwin spoke, he knew he was right. “Oh come on, it was just a little prank.” 

“You disrespected my privacy and showed no regard for my well-being, and thus you have violated the terms by which I allow spirits in my home. Now leave or I will force you out,” Anduin said, voice low and dangerous in a way that really shouldn’t have been so hot. 

Edwin clearly did something inaudible, because Anduin growled under his breath and concentrated a moment, before something shifted in the air of the room and Mathias heard a distant “hey!” from Edwin. Presumably, that was Anduin forcing him out.

“I’m very sorry Anduin, I didn’t mean to walk in on you. If I’d known you weren’t the one who opened the door I-” 

“It’s fine!” he snapped, clearly at his wit’s end, “It’s fine just…” 

He trailed off, seeming to really see Mathias for the first time and take in the fact that he was evidently not unaffected by what he saw. Anduin bit his lip, looking away and nervously playing with the fabric of the shirt he was holding. “If I had left the door open, if you’d known beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was my choice, what would you have done?” 

Mathias felt his world stumble to a halt. Had Anduin really just asked him that? Was he really flirting with him? And worse yet, was he seriously considering flirting back? 

Apparently his cock decided his crisis was irrelevant because before he could run through the many, many reasons this was a Very Bad Idea, he was saying, “Go back to how you were standing and I can show you.” 

Anduin nodded mutely, turning back around and opening the drawer, spreading his legs perhaps a little more than they’d been before but only to give Mathias a better look at his cunt. He walked forward slowly, making sure his footsteps were loud enough to be heard, and when he reached Anduin he laid his hand on his hip, petting over his flank. 

“Can I touch you, Anduin?” he asked, and when Anduin simply nodded he added, “Words please.” 

“Yeah, you can touch me. Please touch me,” he whined, and Mathias groaned.

“Good boy,” he murmured as he brought his other hand to the man’s cunt, and raised a brow when he moaned at the moniker, “You like when I call you that?” 

“Yeah,” Anduin whispered, pushing back against his touch, featherlight as it was, and whining in his throat again. 

God, he’d barely even touched him and already he felt desperate to get his cock in him. With a patience he barely managed to get a grip on, he pressed harder against the cleft of Anduin’s pussy, groaning when it gave easily to reveal his hot, slick entrance. He slipped a finger inside and pulled back to spread his wetness around a little to ease the way, then slipped in two at once on his next thrust. Anduin shivered, clenching on him, and rocked back on his fingers impatiently. Hoping it wasn’t too much too soon, he added a third finger and was rewarded with a breathy moan from Anduin. 

He fucked him like that on his fingers, curling them to find his g-spot and smirking to himself when he saw Anduin’s legs shake from the effort. But Anduin was whining and begging for him to fuck him properly, and he was already well past what he was rapidly learning was the limit of what he could deny him. Drawing his fingers away and groaning at the slick that practically dripped off them, Mathias realized one small fault in his plans.

“Please tell me you have condoms,” he said, stepping back to make room for Anduin to stand upright again. 

Anduin righted his torso, made to move, then wobbled from the head rush and caught himself on Mathias's shoulder. “Yeah, they’re in the bedside table. In date too, I checked the other day.” Anduin motioned for the table in question and plopped himself down on the bed on his back. “Do be quick about it, the minute I get my dizziness under control I’m gonna jump you if you’re not already in me.” 

Mathias snorted at that but went about hastily shucking his pants and shirt, opening the single drawer in the table, and pulling out a condom. For the sake of diligence, he checked the date himself and, seeing that Anduin had been correct, opened it and put it on, unable to help the way his hips jerked up into his own touch after so much neglect. He made his way back to where Anduin had splayed himself out on the bed, knees pulled to either side of his chest in a display of impressive flexibility and fingers playing with his cock and lips teasingly. 

“I thought you said you were going to jump me,” he teased as he put a hand on Anduin's thigh to hold him in place and lined himself up with his entrance. 

Anduin hummed. “Yeah, but I got distracted staring at you naked. You got lucky, it won’t be so easy next time.” 

Trying to banish from his mind the hope that Anduin was serious about there being a next time, Mathias rolled his hips forward and entered him slowly. Although Anduin mewled and twitched and tried to roll his hips up to get Mathias deeper sooner, he was patient and entered him gently. Perhaps had they done this before and he knew what Anduin could take he would be less gentle, but this was the first time, and he didn’t want to hurt him. When he was finally fully seated, hips resting against Anduin’s, he drew back and thrust back in strong but slow.

“Please, Mathias, I can take more than that,” Anduin whined, clenching around him to make his hips stutter. 

“I… Yeah, alright,” he replied, making his next thrust harder and faster much to Anduin’s evident delight. 

With a cry that could probably wake his neighbours, Anduin tightened on his cock and shuddered with each thrust, fingers playing with his cock in a way that shouldn't have been nearly so arousing as it was. His eyelids were fluttery and, if the way he was gripping his thigh with one hand and making a long, continuous noise in his throat that rose in pitch with every thrust like a siren, he was probably getting close. Which was good, really, because, for all he was nearly 45, it had certainly been a while since he’d been intimate with anyone and there was something about Anduin that was bringing him to the edge sooner than he’d expected. 

Leaning down over him, Mathias braced a hand on the mattress above Anduin’s head to give himself some leverage in the new position and pistoned his hips into him harder. He brought his lips to his neck and sucked a bruise there, feeling strangely possessive all of a sudden, but when the action sent Anduin screaming and howling over the edge he figured it was probably something Anduin liked. With Anduin clenching around him and shaking with orgasm, Mathias found he was powerless to stop himself from following right after him, coming hard and burying his groan in Anduin’s neck. 

As his heart rate returned to normal and his breathing levelled out, he felt himself drifting off where he was, still buried in Anduin and half leaning his weight on him. Beneath him, Anduin chuckled, jostling his shoulder. 

“We should get up and clean up before we go to bed,” he murmured, one hand coming up to pet through Mathias’s hair, “Plus, my hip is starting to cramp from being like this too long.”

“Sorry,” Mathias mumbled, pulling back and withdrawing his cock from Anduin’s body. The action made Anduin whine, and Mathias couldn’t help the surge of arousal that caused, “Keep that up and I might just keep making you come.” 

“Not that I would be opposed under normal circumstances, and I would very much like to see how many times you can get me off at some point in the future, but we have work to do tomorrow,” Anduin replied, letting his legs down and massaging at his hips. 

Mathias hummed, and helped pull him up from the bed and direct him to the bathroom. “So you were serious about a next time?” he asked as he took care of the condom.

“I am if you are,” Anduin replied, grabbing a small cloth and dampening it in warm water to clean himself up with, “You know, when I was a kid I had the biggest crush on you. Told my dad I was gonna marry you when I grew up, and he told me I was being ridiculous.” 

Mathias snorted. “He was right, I’m hardly marriage material.”

Anduin rinsed the cloth then handed it over to Mathias. “Perhaps, but neither am I to be fair. I’m too changeable, impatient. I rush into things headlong without considering the consequences. Not the kind of person one wants to be married to.” 

And it almost sounded like he was speaking from experience, like perhaps these were not self-assessments so much as what someone had left him for, but Mathias decided against prying. When Anduin wished to speak about it, he would, and until then Mathias would try to prove himself a trustworthy enough person to talk to about it. 

“Well, that makes us rather the pair, doesn’t it?” he said, rinsing the cloth now that he was done with it and hanging it over the shower curtain rod to dry.

“I suppose it rather does,” Anduin agreed, though more solemnly than Mathias had hoped, “Let’s get to bed, it’s late.”

They returned to the main room, Anduin shutting off the heater before climbing into bed beside Mathias and promptly curling into his heat. He was a warm weight against his front, and as Mathias drifted off with his arms wound tightly around him, he let go of whatever anxieties he had over what would happen the next day. Anduin could take care of it,  _ would _ take care of it, and then everything would go back to normal — well, normal but without the demons — and maybe, if he was lucky, Anduin would be part of that normal too. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope y'all enjoyed! There will be a second chapter up probably by the end of the month where they actually do all the shit at Shaw's place, but it might take me a while to get around to finishing it. 
> 
> As always, kudos and comments mean the world ❤❤❤


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